FF8: Soliloquy of the Blind
by Astarte
Summary: A short story about Raine's thoughts


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Soliloquy of the Blind

By Astarte

So, what do I do now? He's turned my entire life upside down and inside out. He shattered the comfortable routine of my life, not to mention the quiet lives of everyone else in the town. He stalks through Winhill like a disaster in the making, leaving nothing but upheaval in his wake. No one, certainly not me, is quite sure what to make of him. One is constantly left baffled. My heart says that he's dangerous.

Its not that he's a violent or aggressive man, but I'm convinced that something vital is under threat. Things that I'd thought safely buried, locked away, now try to break out. He's awakened something inside of me that I'd spent a lifetime trying to smother. A deep quiet voice in my head shrieks at me to beware, that he'll change things, make me feel things I don't want to feel. Laguna Loire is the most dangerous man I've ever met.

The thing is that he looks so utterly harmless, so charmingly adorable in an inept kind of way. Yet, whenever I look up into those soft liquid eyes, my heart starts making threatening lurches and perilous leaps, nearly jumping out of my throat. That gentle lovely face, that soft kind voice. Those eyes, oh goddess, those eyes. When I look at him my thoughts sometimes drift and my mind torments me with heart pounding, hand clammy imaginations. I think... I think... I think that...

Oh No! No. That can't be it. I can't feel that way about him? He's more a child than a man. He has more in common with Ellone than with me. Look at him! He can talk to Ellone in that secret language that only children know, he understands her. She understands him. I don't. I look at him and I cannot understand him at all.

How does a man grow up and still remain an innocent? How did such a childlike man become a soldier? I have to laugh at the idea. Laguna Loire as a soldier, it verges on the oxymoronic. I've always seen soldiers the same way: smoothly professional, coldly calculating killing machines. He's everything but that. And yet, I could see a platoon of men dying for him, merely because he asked them to. He just seems like the sort to earn undying loyalty. Looking into those eyes... those beautiful eyes...

He's almost comical in his eagerness to repay our kindness, our self-styled protector. I see him venture out every morning, determined to shield Winhill from harm. He's no soldier but a knight, that I see so very clearly. That innocent conviction, that glowing goodness, he's like a knight in shining armour, a paladin in those courtly romances. And I, am I his lady?

I think that... I think that... Oh Hyne help me, I think that I'm in love with him. What do I do? Does he love me or is that sweet smile just reserved for a friend? My head spins with conflicting emotions and my heart feels as though its being crushed. Even if he does love me, will that be enough?

Laguna is a wandering soul, driven by the joy of the moment, the thrill of discovering the mysteries hidden beyond the next hilltop. Could he love me enough to stay, could I ever mean enough to keep him here? I don't think so. His spirit is driven to move from place to place. I don't think he could stay here, not even if he tried.

Could I go with him? I think that I could. A house is not a home and Ellone would follow him to the ends of the earth if need be. I would follow him, I would go where he went, I could eat where he ate, live where he lived. I could do all that, if he wanted me.

I don't think he does, though. I can't see it, he's too innocent and naïve, too lost in the bliss of eternal childhood. I just cannot see him as someone who would fall madly in love with another, he's too in love with adventure to be in love with a woman. As for me, when he looks at me he just sees a friend, a kind face. If he loved me, I'd see it wouldn't I? After all, I'm not blind. Don't they always say that a girl just knows these things?

Its dark now and I'll bet that he never ate dinner. He's been obsessed with some new project or another, one he won't tell me about. I don't push these things, I've seen Ellone do the exact same thing many times. I don't think I could face the pouting if I spoiled his scheme by prying. Still, I'm curious to know what it might be. He's asked me to meet him in the fields tonight. He said that he had something to show me.

For the life of me, I can't imagine what it might be.

FIN.


End file.
